


Principles for effective negotiation

by moonslumbers



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Canon Era, Developing Relationship, F/M, Physical Abuse, because Naraku
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27730765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonslumbers/pseuds/moonslumbers
Summary: Sesshoumaru's mother finds herself wanting a daughter-in-law, and Naraku is more than happy to offer his "daughter" for the job. Sesshoumaru does not oblige. Arranged marriage AU
Relationships: Kagura/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 37





	1. One of many meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Would you look at that, the arranged marriage AU nobody asked for.
> 
> I don't know, the idea snuck up on me and I wanted to try my hand at it. I have a vague idea where I want to go with this. Still, updates won't be nearly as regular as Deeper still, that night.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

He is the only true-born son of a great dog general, blood of a long line of powerful demons spanning millennia. And with that kind of pedigree come certain expectations. Obligations.

His father's very public transgressions and how harshly they harmed his own prospects aside, there is apparently a chance here.

"Do you think I married for love?"

With a tilt of his head Sesshoumaru pretends he'd been listening to more of his mother's words then just her last question. By now he has heard enough iterations of this particular speech he could probably recite it by heart, if he were so inclined.

He isn't.

And that is the crux of the matter. He is not inclined, either to recite his mother's speech, or to marry for whatever reason she deems sensible. What use has he for love? For a wife at all?

The political machinations the offered bride's family are so clearly engineering are frankly insulting. And he is almost alarmed how his mother cannot see that.

He tells her as much.

"Oh, please", she huffs, "that is what all marriages are. Families bickering over land and power and riches, using one girl's life as the balancing factor."

Her words leave a bad taste in his mouth. "If it is more power you want I will -"

"Lay waste to our enemies", she interrupts him, "Yes, yes, I know. And you would be successful too. But that is not what this is, son. This is a chance for alliance."

"And what need do we have for alliances?"

His mother tuts at him. "What will happen once you have slain all who dare oppose us? Will you realise that drawing your sword is not always the solution to your problems?"

"It has been until now."

"And it probably will continue to be so for a while yet. Which only goes to show how insignificant your problems still remain."

Discussing anything with his mother has always been an exercice in managing his anger and frustration. So while he struggles for a moment to retain his calm now, he does ultimately succeed.

So much for always drawing his sword to settle his problems.

He looks away when the doors to the room are slid open, ignoring the entering entourage entirely. It is not the first time they meet; it is, however, the first time they will be discussing matters in this intimate a setting.

His mother invites them to join them at the table, waves away any and all servants to leave the room, and offers food and sake as graciously as she would any other guest, he presumes.

He has no patience for this, still he forces himself to suffer through the pretentious talk, if only to spare himself another litany from his mother.

The bride is a beautiful woman, for how little that is worth, and he focuses his gaze on her only because she is already looking at him.

When their eyes meet, hers narrow, and she tilts her chin up, as if to provoke him. For what, he does not know. Does not care to find out either.

Her father keeps singing her praises, keeps talking, more or less persuasively, of the good that will come of the union between them.

Sesshoumaru interrupts him mid-speech. "Why does she not have a heartbeat?"

The room falls silent at his question, the father's face showing a hint of doubt for the first time in all their discussions.

With a snicker, the supposed bride tucks a fan out of her obi and flicks it open.

"One wonders, father, no?", she says, musingly, hiding her grin behind the fan, "Whether my _child-bearing hips_ compensate for my medical condition?"

Her father throws a sharp glare at her, but it seems to only agitate her further. "My _wilful nature_ you had to curb, then?"

"I'll admit to some curiosity, too", his mother joins after a moment, her voice calm, "but my son does not share my sense of tact, so I beg your pardon for his forwardness. Now that the question has been raised, however, why don't you explain how a body without a heartbeat can keep moving like she does."

The father's eyes narrow for another moment as he stares at his sake cup, but then a small smile lifts his lips. His daughter very obviously shrinks back from it.

"I did not enjoy doing it", he explains, detached, "but over the course of her adolescence it became a necessity to keep her from destroying herself. Her powers are immense, and I worried for the soundness of her mind."

He looks up at the hostess again, then, almost convincing in his gravity.

"I fully trust, however, that your son's strength will be sufficient to keep her contained."

"A being unable to control their own power is not powerful at all", his mother states, her tone light despite her words. It's the first time this evening he finds himself agreeing with anything she has said.

The bride bristles visibly, her fan snapping shut again. She is about to snarl something in response, but then her eyes widen, and only a gasp escapes her mouth.

"I do apologise for my daughter's behaviour, it seems the prospect of marriage has gotten the best of her nerves."

Said daughter has turned her face away from them, a fist tightly closed over her breast.

"Nothing you said explains why she appears to lack a heart altogether", Sesshoumaru says, certain of the fact that he is watching the woman work her way through agony while trying to maintain her composure.

"I took it."

As he would have guessed, but even so.

"That seems a very extreme measure as far as parenting goes, no?", his mother asks, "I will freely concede to my son being more powerful than me at his point, but I don't live in constant fear of him trying to murder me in order to usurp me."

Ah, Sesshoumaru thinks, he had not thought of it that way. But it seems the most logical conclusion, a father so clearly outmatched by his daughter doing what needed to be done to keep control of her.

Distasteful, really, but not that surprising.

"What use will I have for half a being?", he asks of his mother who returns his glare with a small smirk.

"She will be given to you hale, of course", the father hurries to reassure.

The daughter keeps her silence.

And there is little left to talk about, after all, the topic forbidding enough to prevent them from moving back to more trivial matters.

Having fulfilled his part for the night, Sesshoumaru leaves without so much as a word to excuse himself. After that whole spectacle his mother cannot possibly continue considering a match between him and that half-creature, cannot want to play into that man's hands and his ulterior motives. What those are, specifically, Sesshoumaru isn't interested in guessing.

He is sure it's irrelevant now, anyway.


	2. Her audacity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Sesshoumaru just can't catch a break.:)

Unfortunately or not, Sesshoumaru did not inherit his mother's penchant for political manoeuvering, a fact she has taken every opportunity to bemoan. It disgusts him, the continuous kowtowing, the empty flattery - his mother is above all this, yes, but it bothers him that she entertains the foolish notions of others, and that she delights in the way they hang onto her every word and deed as if she is infallible.

She is not.

And nothing says that more clearly than the fact that he can still detect their visitors' scents lingering the next morning, when she should have thrown them out the very same night.

There is no doubt his mother is planning something as well, at this point. What that might be he has no wish to find out, so instead of joining her for breakfast as she had intended him to, he makes to leave home.

The sun is barely more than a sliver on the horizon when he takes off and heads for the coast, where he spends hour upon hour tracking lesser demons, chasing leads which, as is fast becoming usual, ultimately get him nowhere.

There is no peace of mind to be had here, either, it seems.

It remains an ever festering coil of rage in his gut, the knowledge that his father traded his family so easily for another one, a lesser one, and that he, even more easily, deprived Sesshoumaru of the heritage he rightfully deserves as the first-born son.

His mother plays it off for reasons he cannot determine, but the great lengths his father went to in order to hide his body, his grave, from them is an insult that continues to gnaw at Sesshoumaru, for the years that have passed since his father's death.

Sesshoumaru does not remember him as a cruel, vindictive person, distant maybe, but then a child's point of view might have warped his perception. Maybe, if he met him now, he would know him for the fool he was.

Though, his father's shortcomings matter little now, either way, since nothing has brought Sesshoumaru closer to finding his resting place ever since he begun this quest.

The demons that keep falling on his blade do nothing to distract him from his turmoil either.

By late evening he determines it foolish to continue in this vein and decides to return home. 

Where, evidently, another myriad of problems is awaiting to irritate him, demanding his attention as he becomes aware of his supposed bride long before he has arrived in his rooms, her scent distinct enough to warn him of her presence. 

Instantly, he is on edge, her being here not only a violation of propriety, if he cared about that sort of thing, but a breach of boundaries.

He opens the doors with a bit more force than warranted.

She kneels at the open window facing west, and as such, the sunset, her elbow on the sill, her chin in her hand. She blinks at his sudden appearance, but does nothing to remove herself.

"I should kill you for your boldness."

She shrugs her shoulders. "You can do that", she tells him, calmly, "or you can listen to what I have to say first, and then determine whether it merits killing me."

He watches her study him patiently, and if it weren't for the slight twist of her mouth he would almost believe her act.

Having her blood on his hands will not bring him answers either however, even if it would remove their guests from their home more quickly. 

Still, he finds himself curious to know what gave her the gall to be here right now.

"Say your piece, then", he tells her.

"Despite what you might think, I know where I'm not wanted."

Which cannot be true since she remains here. Very blatantly so. And instead of leaving she continues watching him, a shrewd look to her eyes.

"My father is desperate for this connection", she continues, as if anybody in this place was not already aware of that fact, "and he will offer you the wolf tribes' lands if you ask him for it."

Are the wolf tribes' territories governed by anyone but the wolves, to be so easily given away by someone like her father? He doesn't know. But then again, it has been a while since he had roamed that far north. And Naraku has to have some kind of standing for his mother to consider this connection at all.

What of it, though? It remains the hard truth that if he wanted land, he could just go out and conquer it.

"Chances are", she continues, "he will keep upping his offers the longer you take to outright refuse."

It has never been his intention to draw this farce out for longer than necessary, but his mother remains the lady of the house and even if she were not, he still values her enough that he is unwilling to simply disregard her wishes or opinions.

"Is that what you want?", he asks, wondering, "For me to refuse?"

She tilts her head at him, the question apparantly amusing her.

"What I want is the right to refuse anything myself", she says, her tone light, "but no. To answer your question. I do not want you to refuse."

His expression seems telling enough for her to sigh, shedding all of her amusement.

"Look", she says, "I know my situation. I know that if you refuse, my father will find someone else to take me off his hands. Someone less ... confident who will hang onto every word he utters."

"Which you are adverse to."

"You might have noticed I do not have the most loving relationship with my father. You might have also noticed that he is a fucking liar."

"And you are not?"

She pauses for a moment, seems to try to get her bearings before she says anything more. 

"My word means little in this situation, I know. But I swear, I will be out of your sight the moment my father lets go of me. You will never have to see me again. And if we play it right we don't even have to go through with the ceremony in the first place."

"Play what right?"

"He said I would be given to you hale. So he will have to return my heart to me. Because he knows you'd know the difference."

She meets his eyes firmly. "That's all I want", she emphasises, "I just want my heart back."

It irks him, her plan to make him a pawn in her game. And yet. In all the weeks since this discussion about taking a bride begun, she has been the first to be forward about her motivations.

Her plight is an honest one, that much her scent tells him. Still, he finds the whole situation ridiculous.

"What will I get in return then? For your heart?"

She eyes him suspiciously. "Like I said my father is -"

"No, nothing he offers is of any interest to me."

Her jaw clenches in displeasure at his sudden interruption, but she keeps a firm grip on her own emotions. Which he would commend her for, if he were given to that kind of behaviour.

"Fine", she says, a sudden glint to her eyes, "what about Tessaiga then?"

He stops. Considers.

For her to know about the sword at all, much less its name, can only mean one of two things; either his father yet kept even more secrets, or he had not anticipated in all his careful planning for things to go awry after his death.

Neither of these options please Sesshoumaru.

"I thought that might get your attention", she adds, smirking.

By the widening of her eyes he can tell she noticed the sudden spike of his youki.

"The sword is not yours to offer", he growls, but she does not even flinch.

"True enough", she agrees, "but information of its whereabouts is fair game, I think."

"Then speak."

This time it's her who considers, taking his measure and while the frown remains etched into her face she turns to him fully, her hands folded in her lap.

"Have you ever met your younger brother?"


End file.
